This invention relates to root canal sealers and cleaners having dimension indications to permit easy identification of their dimensions, and also to a method and means for forming dimension indications on the root canal sealers and cleaners.
When corrosion of a decayed tooth reaches the dental pulp, root canal treatment becomes necessary. This involves removing the nerves and capillary vessels of the tooth, cleaning the hollow neural tube part or root canal of the tooth with a root canal cleaner, and filling the hollow tooth with an air-tight root canal sealer.
Such root canal cleaning and filling is the basis of normal clinical treatment. If the root canal filling is not perfect, a dead cavity may result. The latter may affect the clinical process and ultimately damage the surrounding periodontal tissue and become occasion for the loss of the tooth.
Dental root canal sealers generally use various therapeutic materials such as gum resin, gutta percha points, silver points, or other materials depending upon the purpose and quality of the sealer. Paper points often serve as a cleaning material.
Root canal cleaners and sealers are normally in the form of needles whose front ends are thin and whose diameters increase gradually towards the heads of the opposite sides. Such tapered root canal sealers and cleaners are manufactured in various sizes having front diameters between 0.15 mm and 1.4 mm available in steps of 0.05 mm. Thus, a dentist may select and use the optimal dimensions depending upon the size of the root canal. The length of such root canal sealers and cleaners are standardized at approximately 28 to 30 mm. In general, sealers and cleaners have the same substantial shape. Only the sealer is described by way of illustration of the present invention.
Cleaners may have the same shapes and features as the sealers and may be manufactured in the same manner as the sealers. However, the term sealer is intended to be limited to sealers per se.
Because the difference in the sizes of the dental sealers is so small, it is impossible to discriminate between sealers of different sizes with the naked eye. The manufacturing and packing processes attempt to permit one to discriminate between their sizes by marking the dimension on the boxes containing a prescribed number of root canal sealers. Another method of permitting identification is to attach color coding labels such as red, blue, green, black, white, yellow, etc., labels on such boxes or containers.
However, these methods of dimension indication on a container or box creates problems when root canals sealers having small size differences become mixed up. This makes it possible for one to distinguish them and, if they are misused, they adversely affect the root canal filling and treatment. Hence, misclassification may negatively impact clinical processes after treatment.